1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an injection molding machine. More particularly, the present invention relates to an injection molding machine having a standby mode and an automatic restart mode.
2. Disclosure Information
It is common in the fabrication industries to run injection molding machines 24 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. The machines are stopped for only a few reasons, such as normal machine maintenance, mold maintenance or replacement or machine break down. The machine can produce many parts during this operating time, the parts typically being stored after fabrication, then transported to other locations within the same or different plant for inclusion into a greater assembly.
The storing and transporting of parts can be quite expensive. Consequently, methods have been used to reduce this cost. One method employed has been to move the injection molding machines very near to the plant location, such as an assembly line, which has the next immediate need for the produced parts. This coupling of the injection molding machine to an assembly line has minimized the excess number of parts. As such, when the assembly line is running, the injection molding machine must also be running. When the assembly line stops for whatever reason, the injection molding machine must also stop since there is no longer any storage capacity for the produced parts.
In the past, an operator stopped an injection molding machine by manually shutting off valves and material feeds to the machine. Typically, this could take approximately 10-15 minutes per machine, while starting the machine up again could be just as long. An operator usually is responsible for a large number of machines and a significant amount of time would be spent shutting down the machines and then restarting them. If an assembly line was down for a short length of time, for example an hour while the assembly line workers were at lunch, the injection molding machine operator could not shut down and restart all machines in his area in this time. This required having additional operators assist during these times, again increasing coat.
A number of proposals have been made for automatically shutting injection machines down by simply pressing a button or switch after a predetermined time or event. But there has been no teaching of restarting the machines automatically after a predetermined time. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an injection molding or other type of fabrication machine the ability to maintain a standby condition or mode and automatically restart after a predetermined time period has elapsed.